


Five Times Steve Rogers Tried to Get Drunk, and One Time He Didn't Need To

by FalsettoFetish



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 18:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalsettoFetish/pseuds/FalsettoFetish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>what it says on the tin</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Steve Rogers Tried to Get Drunk, and One Time He Didn't Need To

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [lanilaniduck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LaniLaniDuck/pseuds/LaniLaniDuck), partner in all things and excellent beta
> 
> Drink responsibly, kids

• I Never Liked You Anyway

Bucky's been promoted at the garage, from temporary hire to full-time employee, with set hours and a weekly salary, and tonight they're going out to celebrate. Bucky's thrilled, and Steve tries to be happy for him, that now they won't have to worry about making rent if Steve doesn't make enough in tips at the diner. "I'll pay you back whatever I owe you," Steve insists.

"Aw, come off it, Stevie. We don't hafta worry about that anymore."

"I'm no freeloader," Steve grumbles, but Bucky isn't listening anymore.

At the bar, Bucky magnanimously buys a round for the whole table, him and Steve and a bunch of guys from the garage Steve's never met before. They're all big and loud and strong enough to do the kind of jobs Steve'll never get. He's not jealous of Bucky, Bucky's done too much for him for Steve to begrudge him anything, but he can't manage to quash the resentment he feels for these guys.

One of them laughs when he sees the watery beer Steve's drinking. "Can't you afford to get your kid brother the real stuff?" he asks Bucky with a guffaw, and Bucky laughs. He's already flushed and glassy-eyed, but his laughter still rankles.

Steve seizes Bucky's glass of whiskey and drains it in one gulp. It burns the back of his throat and he starts coughing. A big hand lands between his shoulder blades, and he tries to breathe through it, praying he hasn't triggered an asthma attack.

When it's clear that Steve is still breathing, the table erupts in uproarious laughter. He's congratulated, only a little mockingly, on his valiant effort. Still, he spends the rest of the evening sullenly sipping his tepid beer while Bucky and his friends get progressively drunker.

 

• I Wish I May I Wish I Might

It's been three days since they got back from Steve's unauthorized rescue mission. Three brutal days of briefings and reports. It's been worse for Bucky, who's had three days of doctors on top of all the meetings, and Steve hasn't really gotten a chance to talk to him yet.

But tonight they're in a bar near the base, with some of the other men from the 107th. Steve can't get drunk anymore, but he's drinking anyway, for the camaraderie. Bucky, on the other hand, is nursing his third whiskey. He's usually a happy, talkative drunk, but he's been quiet all evening. Steve supposes it's possible Bucky learned to hold his liquor better since he joined the army, but his silence is disconcerting.

Most of the others have already returned to their barracks when Bucky stands from his barstool and almost falls, but Steve is there to catch him. Steve will always be there to catch Bucky if he has anything to say about it. Bucky looks up at Steve and almost smiles for the first time all evening.

Steve's half-dragged a drunken Bucky home more times than he can count. He's used to Bucky's weight, more than his, more than he can manage, encouraging Bucky "keep your feet under you, pal, I can't carry you home." He's used to Bucky slurring his words but still talking a mile a minute. He's hauled Bucky's drunk ass home more times than he can count, and it's never been this easy, or this hard.

Halfway back to the barracks, Bucky slumps against him. "I thought I was gonna die," he mumbles into Steve's shoulder. They're the first words he's spoken all evening. He looks up at Steve blearily, "Thought I'd never see you again, Stevie," he slurs, and then clumsily presses his lips against Steve's.

Steve's dragged Bucky's drunk ass home more times than he can count, and he knows the stages of Bucky's drunkenness. He knows by the way he stumbles and how he slurs his words that Bucky's not going to remember this in the morning. He doesn't want to kiss Bucky back if Bucky's not going to remember it. He's sober, Bucky's slobbering drunk, and he doesn't want to take advantage. But for just a moment, god does he wish he were drunk enough not to care.

 

• Too Little, Too Late

Dr. Erskine told him he wouldn't be able to get drunk. In a bombed-out bar in Italy, he's 37 shots into trying anyway. He figures if he can drink it fast enough, he might be able to feel something, might be able to stop feeling for a moment.

He looks up when he hears footsteps behind him, and sees Peggy picking her way towards him through the rubble. One of the guys must have sent her, probably Gabe or Monty. She doesn’t say anything about the fact that he’s crying, but she doesn’t pretend not to have noticed either.

“It wasn't your fault,” she says, with so much compassion Steve feels like he might shatter into a million pieces.

“You know that's not true,” he grits out.

“Did you believe in your friend?” she asks. “Did you respect him? Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it.”

“I’m going after Shmidt.” He doesn’t realize it until he says it out loud, but it’s obvious. “I’m not gonna stop until all of HYDRA’s dead or captured.”

“Well then,” she says, her tone businesslike, grounding, “let’s get to work.”

 

• The Kind You Stop

It’s been two weeks since Nick Fury left them in a cemetery, and Steve and Sam have finally picked up a hint of what might be a trail, and they’re leaving in the morning. For Brooklyn, or Moscow, or some other place entirely, only time will tell. Steve wishes they could be gone already, but Sam has some last-minute things to take care of.

Natasha finds Steve on the roof of Sam’s building, staring off towards the east in the fading light of dusk. She saunters up to him with a bottle of vodka, which she takes a swig of, then offers to him. He shakes his head, and she takes another drink.

“Bit of a stereotype, don’t you think?” he asks, gesturing at the vodka.

“When I want to be,” she says with a smile.

They stand there in silence for a while, looking out over the darkening city. But Steve knows this isn’t a casual visit, and eventually, Natasha gets to the point.

“So, you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“We are.”

“You know what I came here to say.”

“I imagine you’ll say it anyway.”

She sighs. There are no illusions between them, none of Natasha’s usual tricks. She respects him too much for that, and he appreciates it, but he thinks sometimes it frustrates her.

“You’ve read the file. The things they did to him, the things he did - you don’t just come back from that, Steve. You don’t -” she shakes her head, then continues more quietly, “you don’t come back from that.”

“You didn’t know him before, Natasha. The way he moved, the way he fought - that was all Bucky. And on the helicarrier - he knew me. Some part of him knew me.”

“HYDRA is very good at mental conditioning, Steve, and he’s been given their best for seventy years. You need to be prepared for the possibility that there’s nothing left of your friend but a weapon.”

“I can’t accept that. I know it’s gonna be hard, and I know he’s not gonna be the same, but somewhere deep down, he’s still Bucky. You can’t - you can’t erase someone’s soul!” he finally bursts out.

“Oh, Steve,” Natasha sighs. “Of course you can.”

She leaves the bottle when she goes.

The vodka burns on the back of Steve’s throat.

 

• Home Is Home

“I’m very happy chasing cold leads on our,” Sam glances around; there are way too many strangers- many of them former SHIELD agents- at this party, “missing persons case.”

“Nothing?” Steve asks.

It’s been months since Natasha tracked him down outside Bratislava and convinced him to come home. “We need you, Steve. CIA, FBI, they’re trying to pick up everything SHIELD was doing, but they’ve got internal investigations to conduct, and things are starting to slip through the cracks.” She’d brought some very convincing reports, including a few about FBI agents who had died trying to deal with things they weren’t prepared for, deaths that Steve could have prevented. But ultimately, the most convincing thing she’d said was, “If you’re right about him, he’ll come to you when he’s ready.”

Since then, he’s been busy, out on missions for Hill, missions for the Avengers, even one or two highly encrypted missions from Nick Fury. But he never stops thinking about Bucky, wondering anxiously if Nat’s right and he’ll come home one day to find Bucky waiting for him, wondering if Sam has found anything, anything at all that might lead them to Bucky. He thought he saw Bucky out of the corner of his eye on a mission once, but the flash of metal turned out to be just a reflection off a HYDRA agent’s weapon. He’s not allowing himself to get sloppy, but he feels like a spring too tightly-wound, like he might snap at any instant. He feels like there’s something crawling under his skin. It’s worse tonight, when what’s keeping him here isn’t necessary.

“Took out a HYDRA bunker in Marrakesh a few weeks back,” Sam says with a shrug. “Nothing else to report. How are things here? You find a place in Brooklyn yet?”

“I don’t think I can afford a place in Brooklyn,” Steve quips.

“Well, home is home, you know?” Sam says. He’s not fooled by Steve’s joking demeanor.

“Go, mingle,” Steve says. “You’ve earned it.” After a minute, Sam claps him on the shoulder and wanders over to talk to Hill.

Steve watches the party for a few more minutes, then forces himself to go back and join the fun. He wanders over to Thor, who is talking to some WWII vets. Tony probably invited them as a gesture to Steve, but they mostly make him feel out of place, too young and too old at the same time. He could have fought beside these men, and he’d never recognize them now.

Thor proffers around a flask.

“This was aged for a thousand years, in barrels built from the wreck of Brunhild’s fleet. ‘Tis not meant for mortal men,” he says, but he pours it anyway. Just holding it up to his nose makes Steve’s eyes water.

He glances over at Sam, who catches his eye and raises his glass in a miniscule toast. What the hell, Steve thinks, and knocks back the glass.

 

\+ Happy New Year

It's New Year's Eve and Tony is hosting a party. It's mainly a PR thing, so all of the Avengers are expected to make an appearance. Except that Clint's on assignment, Thor's on Asgard, Bruce is still MIA, and no one is going to try to make Natasha do anything she doesn't want to. So it looks like Steve and Sam will be going alone, unless...

“Hey, are you coming to the thing tonight?”

“Me?” Bucky looks up at Steve incredulously. He has dark circles under his eyes and clearly hasn’t shaved, or, it seems, brushed his hair, in at least three days. “Are you kidding? I’m unpredictable. Volatile. Not to be trusted in crowds.”

There’s a beat of silence where Steve scrambles for something to say, trying to keep his face from showing horror, and then one corner of Bucky’s mouth quirks up.

“You big jerk,” Steve says, punching him in the shoulder. “You are not.”

“Just don’t tell Pepper that, okay? I didn’t want to hurt the lady’s feelings. But hey - you have fun at your fancy party while Natasha and I watch bad movies in our pajamas." It’s not Bucky’s old shit-eating grin, just that wry half-smile, but there’s laughter in his eyes, and Steve can’t help smiling back.

 

Sam is clearly a better friend than the rest of them. He's been running interference for most of the evening, but now he's across the room flirting with a former SHIELD agent who could probably kill him with one hand tied behind her back. Yeah, Sam has a type. Steve, in the great tradition of the socially awkward everywhere, is lurking in a corner near the buffet table. He's sipping his fourth glass of very expensive champagne, more so he has something to do with his hands than anything else. At nearly midnight, the guests migrate towards the windows to watch the ball drop. Steve is just wondering if he can sneak away gracefully when he catches sight of Bucky.

He's wearing a tuxedo and a wide smile, and Steve’s heart starts pounding.

He keeps losing sight of Bucky as he weaves his way through the crowd, who have started counting down the last minute of the year. Bucky has to lean in so close to be heard over the chanting that his lips are practically touching Steve’s ear.

“Hey.” Steve feels as much as hears it. Ten, nine, eight. He's standing so close to Steve, and his eyes are so wide and so blue.

"Hey," Steve manages to respond, feeling dazed. “You look really…” Five. Four. Three.

“Happy New Year, Stevie,” Bucky says, and kisses him.

It takes a moment for Steve to realize that the fireworks are actually happening and aren’t just in his own head. His knees go weak and fire pools in his belly. He feels lightheaded as his hands reach up of their own volition and tangle in Bucky's hair. Bucky tastes like champagne, and it's the best buzz he's ever gotten. He feels like he did when he first got the serum, like he could do anything, like, with Bucky's mouth on his, he can finally breathe.

"Happy New Year," Steve says, and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://falsettofetish.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
